An agreement between Amsterdam University Press and the LeidenAsiaCentre will bring two new publications to AUP’s Asian Studies programme each year. With support from the LeidenAsiaCentre, the Netherlands’ expertise centre for socially relevant and applicable research on modern East Asia, these titles will immediately be made available under AUP’s Gold Open Access scheme.

Starting off as an archery demonstration in Aylesbury, England in 1948, the Paralympic Games have grown into an event with global proportions. With the inclusion of more athletes and more participating countries, the Paralympic Games have become the second biggest sporting event in the world, being second only to the Olympic Games. In 2020 the Paralympic Games will be held in Tokyo, Japan.

On the 18th of October 2017 the five-yearly Party Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) started. Two days before, on the 16th of October, the LeidenAsiaCentre held its second Asia Current Affairs Forum (ACAF) to shed light on the context of the Party Congress. The ACAF is an initiative designed to periodically assembly experts on the Asian region to debate upcoming or current issues of relevance to a broad audience in line with the goals of the Leiden Asia Centre.

Leiden University enjoys a world-wide reputation for its expertise on Asia and for its Asian collections. To coincide with the official opening of The Asian Library in September 2017, the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), LeidenAsiaCentre (LAC) and the Shared Taste Project at Leiden University hosted a Summer School devoted to the academic study of Asian Food for MA/PhD students and early career scholars.

China has changed the dynamic in the world order, whether or not it intended to do so. Its fast economic growth has given it the potential to have a much greater influence on the world. As a result, the world is increasingly asking what kind of influence China will have. Will it upset the liberal world order that has dominated since WW2? Will it integrate peacefully into this order? Or will the outcome be somewhere between these two poles, with China contributing to reforms of the existing order?
On the 23rd and 24th of August, the LeidenAsiaCentre held a roundtable discussion to try to answer some of these questions and get to examine what China’s intentions might be with regards to global governance. This roundtable session brought together experts on Chinese political economy to discuss China’s changing international role and the implications of this for Europe.

The South China Sea is a busy area of ocean criss-crossed by shipping lanes, bordered by Vietnam to the west, China and Taiwan to the north, the Philippines to the east, and Brunei to the south. This approximately 3.5 million square kilometre area has been the focal point of considerable ongoing disputes between these and other Asian nations. In the past two years, these disputes have seen a number of new and interesting developments.

In the 1950s, the communist state called on Chinese women to join the labor force, but as the retreating state plays a smaller role in enforcing female hiring, old gender stereotypes are returning. For educated and financially independent Chinese women, these biases present a unique challenge: